


Soulmate Network

by orphan_account



Series: unrelated tumblr shorts [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, Gen, Tumblr Prompts, a modern modern au of sorts, apparently not-quite-soulmate au's are my jam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 16:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14897943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Charles Augustus Magnussen grits his teeth mid-exam as pain shoots up his left leg before dulling into an insistent vibration. His soulmate is getting a tattoo.He is 17 and the year is 1998 and Google has just come online.--@noregretsnotearsnoanxieties prompted: Soulmate AU: Where a tattoo isn’t set from the moment you’re born and whatever tattoos your soulmate gets, you get it too and it’s all cool because you kind of like the designs, except you also feel the pain of getting a tattoo and that sucks because you’re kind of in the middle of an exam right now and it’s getting harder to concentrate on your work.





	Soulmate Network

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afteriwake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/gifts).



Charles Augustus Magnussen is 17 years old when he gets the first clue as to who his soulmate is. He is sitting in a massive lecture room with two hundred other students, in the middle of an exam, when pain shoots down his left leg, moments later replaced with an insistent vibration. 

His soulmate is getting a tattoo.

He is 17 and the year is 1998 and Google has just come online. 

Charles grits his teeth and finishes the exam, later coming out top of his business class as everyone had expected. 

Afterwards, he rushes to the restrooms and shoves his trousers down to his knee to get a look at the tattoo which he already has a good idea of.

_M.N. 1977, July, Santa Clara_

It’s more than enough to find a close hit on the identity via a database, but Charles isn’t so sure he cares to do so.

-

One week later, Charles overhears two fellow freshmen on campus talking about soulmates. 

He’s vaguely aware that other people are deeply interested in finding the person considered their counterpart, someone to have and to hold for the rest of their lives. Someone to confer with and be hampered by.

So he tunes out most of the conversation until the tail end of one question catches his attention.

“Do you think I would find anything about him by searching on Google?” she asks.

Charles looks up; both girls are in his International Business class, and the growth of the internet and search engines covers about a third of the curriculum.

He sits back, crossing his arms, and considers the fact that there is an opportunity here to be capitalized on.

-

Jack sits cramped over in a wholly uncomfortable looking position at the edge of Charles’s bed, so that he can reach the computer he has propped up on a flimsy dorm-issued chair. 

Charles is sitting a safe several feet away from his hygienically questionable project partner.

“How is it going?”

Jack mumbles something that sounds more or less in the affirmative, except its meaning is stymied by the amount of chips he’s shoved in his mouth.

It’s enough to let Charles know they can go ahead and set up those investor meetings he’s been fishing for.

-

Four out of five of those meetings go south quickly.

The venture capitalists and angel investors sigh and glance over the code and give Charles a look that says they’re going to try to let him down nicely, but quickly, so as to not waste any of their very expensive time.

The fifth meeting is with a curious looking man with owl-like eyes that blink at Charles behind his thick glass lenses, and though this magazine publisher has much less to invest than the others do, he perks up at the mention of “soulmates” and cuts Charles a check by the end of the meeting.

“Human interest will always prevail,” he comments, “regardless of medium.”

Charles smiles and agrees and makes some comment about universality, but he’s really thinking about how tabloids will always continue to sell, sell, sell, even when newspapers die out, how online gossip will continue to thrive even when the onslaught of global information access obscures the truth, and, porn.

-

One year later, the DotCom bubble bursts and companies implode and Charles’s sole investor is one of eight C-level executives in the industry who kill themselves within the year. 

The check he’s cut Charles has gone a long way, though, so Charles feels some obligation to understand why he did it. It turns out the happy family the man had plastered all over his office wasn’t so happy, and that he had overextended himself trying to win their favor after years of overworking. The guilty and shame only climaxed after the recession’s toll on his company, and he had no gifts left to beg forgiveness with. 

Charles is wondering why this man would go through so much trouble to give so much to someone who clearly he had lost a connection with years ago, when he remembers that he and his wife were soulmates.

People, it seems, would go through a great deal of sacrifice for the idea of a soulmate. 

Beta testing his platform has shown him that people are willing to give up an extraordinary amount of private information in the search for their supposed soul-counterparts, thinking nothing of the consequences this divulging of information could have, on either party. 

Charles makes a note of it.

The timing of all of it couldn’t have been more perfect. Charles is quietly, steadily building his soulmate-connecting online platform while the industry rushes to restructure itself, cutting tens of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in profit. 

In one year, the platform goes live, and becomes an overnight success. Over the next eight months the platform goes through its second series of funding, and Charles makes a killing. 

His partners are ecstatic, rejoicing at the windfall and sudden global fame, but Charles has his eyes set on higher sights now. After all, he has, in writing, what 500 million people around the world are willing to trade for their soulmates. 

He's hit a goldmine.

**Author's Note:**

> okokok I know Sherlock BBC is already a "modern" adaptation but I feel like between the time the series was created and the world as people understand it today tons has changed, which is why I keep writing these tech industry modern au's (see: bitcoin au lmfao)


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